From Mark 15:16-20 / King of the Jews – Jesus is referred to by this title no less than 18 times in the Gospels, but more often in Mark than any other. In fact, He is so called 5 times in this 15th chapter alone. He is asked if He is King of the Jews by Pilate in vs. 2. In vs. 9, Pilate asks the crowd whom they would have released, Barabbas, or the King of the Jews? In vs. 12 Pilate asks what he should do with the King of the Jews – to which they answer “crucify Him”. In today’s text, Jesus is mocked as the King of the Jews by his Roman torturers. And at last in vs. 26, this was the great charge leveled against Him and affixed above His head: “The King of the Jews”. This, in Latin, Greek and Aramaic. All 4 Gospel writers note this fact. Nothing it seems, in all the world, could be lower or more deserving of contempt than to be the King of the Jews. The Jews rejected Him as their King. Pilate disregarded His kingship. Barabbas the murderer was desired above Him as King. The crowd wanted Him executed under the title King of the Jews. The Roman soldiers mocked Him as King of the Jews. And in the end, that is all they could think to write as the charge against Him deserving death – He was, the King of the Jews. And so it is in salvation, the thing which must be recognized and embraced, is His kingship over us. “[God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Col 1:13–14. He cannot be your Savior and not also your King, any more than I can be Reid but not Ferguson, or Ferguson but not Reid. The two cannot be separated. Won’t you come to Him today? For He is the sweetest, gentlest, most lovely, just, holy, righteous, forgiving and justifying King. He died for sin, that we might be freed from being its slaves, to be rightly brought under His dear Kingship. Come.